Last night I mentioned my book to a friend and realized I hadn't touched it in a long time. This morning I opened it up again to re-read, to see where I stopped, to remind myself.
When I began it, it was an exercise and a challenge I set for myself as a writer, and it was an exploration, a therapeutic process. It was an attempt to understand.
When I began it, I was one of the book's two main characters. I've always known that. But now, as I re-read it after nearly a year of avoidance, I am -- I am, clearly -- the other one. I can see my gestures as I read her. I can watch myself sitting in her skin.
I said once that this was the story of me meeting me in a dive bar. They were both always there. But I never expected this new one to be the one on the outside.
I can't help but wonder if I have rebuilt my Self in this last year around a character I half-discovered, half-created. Even if I was truly aware of her characteristics impatiently waiting their turn in there, how is it that their manifestation is so strikingly similar to the woman I'm reading? I'm trying not to think too much about that.
I suppose there's a lesson in it, regardless; I suppose I should take care not to drown that first character in the second one, now that they've traded places. I suppose I should look after them both now.
Time to put the book away for a little while longer, I think.
I gave a speech/reading yesterday at the Jacksonville Create Festival about why art matters. Here's a partial video and full text.
The night after we launched the #artmatters experiment, I
was on the back porch at a bar, having a drink, catching up with some folks.
A friend of mine was sitting next to me, smoking a
cigarette. As I turned my head she took a drag and let her hand rest on her
knee just under the table.
It was a meaningless gesture. Just a movement; she just
needed a place to put her hand. It was trivial.
Except at that moment, someone moved out of the way of the
light shining from the bulb above the door. And it shone down across the latticed metal of the
tabletop to throw a web of shadows across the back of my friend's hand.
The thing about my friend is, she doesn’t always feel
confident. She doesn’t always feel capable enough or strong enough to
accomplish the things she expects of herself.
But at that moment, her hand was a picture of poise,
of repose,
a cigarette dangling between two fingers,
a fishnet glove of light and shadow painted across
her skin
It was an image of total control.
It was breathtaking.
I interrupted the conversation I was in, I said to the guy I
was talking do, “I’m sorry – do you see that? My God, can you see that?”
He didn’t see it. I couldn’t put words to it fast enough to
tell him. And then someone walked in front of the light, and my friend lifted
her hand to take another drag, and it was gone.
But that ten seconds crystallized why art matters to me.
It isn’t that beauty appeared unexpectedly, although beauty
is important.
It isn’t the fact that something trivial morphed into
something more significant, although that’s important too.
What mattered most was that moment when I thought my chest
would explode if I didn’t cry out to someone, anyone, everyone near enough to
hear: “Do you see that? Do you see
it? Stop. Stop whatever you’re doing and come here and Look. Look at this
beautiful thing I’ve found. Come stand with me and look through my eyes and see
what I see, and then tell me what you
see. Come share this with me.”
That’s why art matters. It draws a line of connection
between us that bypasses all the noise, all the questions and qualifications we
put between ourselves and other people. It catches us off guard and invites us to grab hold of the
person nearest by and say, “Hey – do you see that? Tell me what you see.”
I need that. We need that. We need to look one another in
the eyes and say those things. See, art matters because you matter. We matter.
So to all of you artists, performers, dancers, musicians,
writers who’ve put your work out here today: What you do matters.
And to everyone who came out today to enjoy this work, to
support the arts here in Jacksonville, to expose your kids to art in all these
forms – what you’re doing matters.
Thank you so much for recognizing that, and for coming out
to be a part of it.
